- Year 2024
- NSF Noyce Award # 2050173
- First Name Jennifer
- Last Name Miller
- Registration Faculty/Administrator/Other
- Discipline Life Sciences, Mathematics
- Role Principal Investigator (PI)
- Presenters
Jennifer Miller, Sul Ross State University
Need
Discover how a mobile STEM outreach program centered on the 2023 annular eclipse and 2024 total eclipse is building capacity to recruit and retain highly talented Hispanic and Indigenous Noyce scholars along the Texas Mexico border. This project explores how culturally responsive teaching best practices implementing STEM literacies is increasing the pipeline of highly talented STEM teachers serving rural and remote communities along the Texas Mexico border.
Research Questions
Does a STEM education eclipse outreach mobile mentoring program incorporating citizen science increase the recruitment and retention of Noyce scholars?
Approach
Program components included a series of 10 development activities that integrate the Universal Design for Learning framework, the 5E instructional model, and the 4Cs of technology integration to improve culturally responsive approaches and digital literacies of underserved remote populations located along the Texas Mexico border. The program encompasses a strong community college partnership that utilizes a mobile STEM lab to foster tactile technology approaches. Program participants create and deliver 5E lesson plans through the mentoring program during formal student teaching and informal learning experiences to include summer STEM camps serving surrounding schools located along the Texas Mexico border.
Outcomes
The Noyce en la Frontera program in 2023-2024 served 11 Noyce scholars, with 3 completing student teaching, 3 graduating with honors, 4 working on certification efforts, 2 working for a high needs public school in Eagle Pass and Del Rio. When analyzing perceived self-efficacy of digital literacy skills, pretest results indicated that preservice teachers may need additional support toward improved communication, with a statistically significant finding of .024 (p<.05) as it relates to Factor 1, “I feel confident that I could keep copies of outgoing messages that I send to others”. Additional significant findings revealed that additional support is needed as it relates to digital media literacy. Two significant findings, (p<.05), indicate that Noyce Scholars need additional support in better utilization of digital media literacy. When analyzing Factor 3, Integrated Application Use, there were 2 additional significant findings, indicating that scholars need additional support toward integrating technology across multiple platforms compared to mentors entering the program. Regarding teaching with technology, several significant findings (p<.05) were found to support the need for preservice teachers to have additional support in integrating educational technology into lesson planning, indicating that preservice teachers have a lower confidence levels compared to mentor teachers when tasked with teaching with technology. When analyzing scholars versus mentors’ use of emerging technologies from pretest data, 2 significant findings (p<.05) indicated that scholars again need additional supports to improve their use of teaching with mobile technologies in the classroom, with a significant finding of .009, and teaching from a distance, again with a significant finding of .009. Analyzing emerging technology skills, there was a significant finding of .026, (p<.05), supporting that preservice teachers could benefit from additional support in learning how to utilize cloud-based technologies. All significant findings highlight the need to embed stronger digital literacy instruction within the preparation program to better support preservice teachers. T-STEM pretest analysis provided additional significant findings (p<.05) regarding mathematics teaching expectation outcomes, with mentors reporting a significant lower confidence compared to scholars as indicated in the chart below. These findings support the need for stronger mentor development in culturally responsive teaching practices. In addition, math scholars reported a lower self-efficacy, .006, (p<.05), indicating a significant finding that would support strong formative assessment training approaches with math preservice teachers. When evaluating science preservice to mentor self-efficacy pretest data, a significant finding (p<.05) 09 that mentor teachers need additional support in knowing how to teach difficult scientific topics to assist in improving understanding, .018. The Universal Design Framework can assist with providing additional strategies to better support mentor teachers in this area. Further analysis of TSTEM science preservice/mentor participants indicated that science preservice teachers reported a significant (p<.05) lower teaching outcome efficacy compared to mentor teachers in two areas: “When a student does better than usual in science, it is often because the teacher exerted a little extra effort”, .008, and “ When a student’s learning in science greater than expected, it is most often due to their teacher having found a more effective teaching approach”, at .009. Culturally Responsive Teaching analysis indicated a significant finding (p<.05) with preservice teachers reporting a higher use of leveraging student family backgrounds compared to mentor teachers, .011, further supporting mentor development in culturally responsive teaching practices. In addition, it was found that preservice teachers would benefit from time learning about other cultures and languages compared to mentors as educationally significant, (p<.05), at .031. Noyce en la Fonterra outreach programs, particularly the Uvalde community held in August 2022, provided strong community support and encouragement to persist in the midst of a great tragedy. The Science of STEM Literacy Conference held at SWTJC brought messages of hope through providing a platform for a Uvalde High School teacher, Uvalde High School students, Uvalde elementary teachers, NASA Goddard, Noyce scholars, Noyce mentors, and SWTJC speakers all sharing stories of STEM success. Families felt comfortable and safe to attend a Noyce outreach event the following evening at El Progresso Library. With standing room only, families received backpacks for their children to attend school in the fall. The increase in parent involvement and community interest is a direct outcome of the Noyce en la Frontera program. The mobile Eclipse program served over 7,136 K12 students during eclipse outreach activities with Noyce scholars and Noyce mentors teaching about eclipse science and STEM careers using the 5 E model.
Broader Impacts
The funded Track 1 Noyce en la Frontera scholarship program is meeting and/or exceeding program goals, creating capacity potential toward broader applications among underrepresented minority populations (URM) remote institutions seeking to begin or increase collaborative networks to support STEM education. Broader program impacts could aide in understanding how mobile programs incorporating a mentoring approach might be applied to increase recruitment and retention of STEM teachers serving rural high need schools located along US border territories.
